Tuesday Notes

1. Revenge is coming back. Next week.

2. Community is also coming back. But no date has been set yet.

3. I worked out 3 times this week. And on one night we went to the track and did bleachers and lunges. I am still sore. But we did set two days a week to always go to the track. Apparently I like to torture myself. And running is torture.

4. I am going to run a 5k. I want to run the Blue Bell 5k in April. After you finish you get to eat all the Blue Bell you want. That is according to the website anyways.

5. One month down in the new year and I am rocking most of my resolutions. I have read 10 books this month, I have been working out, and I started trying to knit. I can only get the yarn on one needle, not the other. But I'll figure it out. 

The Revisionists by Thomas Mullen

Zed is from a future society that is considered "perfect." He is sent back from the future to make sure that the past plays out as it originally did. There are others who will go back in time to "fix" it by preventing bad things from happening. Zed's government wants to make sure that the past isn't changed so much that it changes the future.

Zed is sent back to prevent a major event from happening. I wish I could be more specific on that but the book was specific on what the happening was. That is the only thing I would change about the book.

The book follows three other characters whose paths make them essential to the future.

It was a Science Fiction book, but wasn't too SciFy. I actually enjoyed the amount of Science in it.

I would recommend this book. I think there were a few curse words, but beyond that there wasn't much inappropriateness.

Frosted Toast Crunch

I love cereal. It is the best. Luckily, Chris shares in my love.

Behold:

It was amazing and good and I love it. This cereal deserved a post all on its own.

Saturday!

1. Sammie and I have been watching Revenge. It is on of our new TV shows from the fall that we both thought would be stupid, but now we are hooked. But I don't know when it is supposed to come back on!

2. I don't read books that don't use proper pronunciations. I have picked up a few that don't use quotation marks. What is the point? I might be missing out on some good books, but I'll live.

3. I got these shoes. I saw them at Target a week ago and they didn't have my size. And then I went later and they had my size. So...it is my conquest of the week. And less than $10.

4. I started running this week. Again. Hopefully I won't stop.

5. I love the non-winter we've been having. Recess outside isn't just a break for the kiddos.

The Jolly Postman

Has anyone else ever seen this book? I remember it from 1st and 2nd grade. And I have been looking for it for a few years. It was on my Amazon wish list, but I finally just bought it for myself. 

I love it so much because it has other people's letters in it. And it is characters from fairy tales. I love reading books with letters in it.

It isn't exactly what I remember. I think they "improved" it and "updated" it. But since I don't really remember it too much, I couldn't tell you exactly what those improvements are.

But I took some pictures. It is just adorable! There is another like it that I'll have to get soon.

Ella Minnow Pea by Mark Dunn

Go ahead and say the title out loud. I didn't exactly get it right away, but as soon as I realized what it said I had to read this book.

The set up is a fictional island, Nollop, home to the fictional creator of the phrase "The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog." A phrase which uses every letter of the alphabet at least once.

When the monument to the creator starts losing letters of the phrase, the city council bans the use to the letters as they fall. The first letter banned is "Z." Anyone who uses Z in writing or speech will be several punished.

Fantastic premise and the novel delivered. The book is a collection of letters the characters write to each other. As letters are banned, they have to get more creative in their writing. It was fantastic how far the characters got as they lost letters. Towards the end, words were spelled phonetically.

I would recommend this book. It is also one of the few adult fiction books I have read that are completely clean.

My favorite line was write before the K became banished from the island.

"Kkkkkiss me again, Nate, while I may still speak of it!"

Christmas Ornaments

This year I was a little obsessed with making Christmas ornaments. I spent a majority of Thanksgiving break doing it. I had the intention of giving them away on gifts, but I forgot about that. I still need to pass them out. 

These were some of the ones I made. 

While gathering supplies at Michael's one day, I saw the trains and figured they would be fun to paint. I convinced Chris to paint one also. And then we just got lots of wooden ornaments to paint. 

We are slowly expanding our ornament collection. I would love if most of them were handmade.

Prized by Caragh M. O'Brien

I read the first book in this Trilogy (yes, another young adult trilogy) last year. I have a lot of young adult series to finish up this year.

What I didn't like about the first book was the set up of the dystopian society. Now as the main character Gaia leaves one society, she falls into another dystopian society. I felt that the second society was better set up and I loved that.

However, the story had young adult written all over it where the first book did not. There was a love interest in the first book, but it wasn't weird. The characters knew each other for more than a day, they genuinely helped each other and Gaia didn't brood over the fact that she wasn't with the boy all the time.

But in the second story, it was quite opposite. Not only was there a love triangle, but there was a love square.  After the girl had talked to two of the boys for about 20 minutes. How does that happen? It just didn't seem real life, it seemed juvenile.

But... there were a lot of interesting themes suggested. I could imagine that some people would hate the books based on some of the choices that the main character made.

If you are looking for a good series, I would recommend these. I also don't know when the next book comes out yet.

List of Things

1. School has started again. And we are halfway to summer!

2. We had an assembly this week at school. As it was ending, the students were asked to repeat a pledge.

• Presenter: "I"
• Students: "I"
• Presenter: "State your name,"
• Students: "State your name,"

I don't even think they noticed.

3. I am still obsessed with reading. And getting more obsessed with doodling/coloring. In my free time, I alternate between reading and doodling.

4. My school half-year resolution was to leave work on time and not take any work home. And I have stuck to it 85% of the time. Which means I have a little more free time. Some things are not getting done, but they aren't priorities. Sometimes things just have to get dropped. I am okay with that. 

5. I got my hair cut. And now I try to grow it out again. Any suggestions on how to make my ends stay healthy will be appreciated. 

Family Pictures

Over Christmas break we had family pictures done by Sarah Berry. I think they turned about fantastically and she did it in like 20 minutes because we had all woken up really early so we can take these during sunrise. So some of us might have been a bit cranky.